


drunk kid catholic (i guess we're both drowning though)

by redhouseboys



Series: i'm obsessed with the mess that's america [1]
Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Angst, College AU, I tried my best, Implied or Off-stage Rape/Non-con, M/M, Modern AU, Self Harm, Triggers, bye, dont judge me, dont kill me its my first fanfic for this fandom, expect this to be slightly if not wildly ooc, yeah if youre easily triggered please dont read this tread carefully
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-22
Updated: 2013-02-22
Packaged: 2017-12-03 06:33:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,689
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/695284
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/redhouseboys/pseuds/redhouseboys
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>you want to paint sometimes but whenever you do you become so frustrated that your fingers weave their way into your inky black cloud of hair and <i>yank yank yank</i> on the strands because why can’t you paint? and you know why, too, that’s the thing, you know why, and yet you refuse to face the fact that sometimes the world is just too dark and you don’t really have that shade of cold, endless, desolate black that you always spot in the cracks between a crooked smile or in the withered spines of your roommate’s library books or in the thickness of a blood-soaked iris, do you? besides, you have no idea how to paint the voices in your head or the depravity in the streets either way so your brushes keep quiet and your paints stay sealed in their cans and your pallet remains untouched and your canvas blank and your mind soaked in absinthe because it all knows nothing of you, in the end.</p>
            </blockquote>





	drunk kid catholic (i guess we're both drowning though)

**Author's Note:**

> hi, uh, i'm kris and i'm new to this so uh a couple things first.  
> this is my first fic for the les mis fandom and my first fic posted on this site ever so please dont hurt me oh god i'm sure this is OOC but i tried my best i really did oh dear bye  
> oh and secondly the lack of capitalization and the use of run-on sentences and the utilization of the words _and_ or _but_ in every other sentence is purposeful. i wanted to add a sense of mania and lack of rational thought to the piece, my own little touch of insanity i guess. please don't think me sloppy ok i swear i don't write like this all the time don't kill me  
>  and the title was taken from the song drunk kid catholic by bright eyes because it is literally about grantaire any questions no okay good

you want to paint sometimes but whenever you do you become so frustrated that your fingers weave their way into your inky black cloud of hair and _yank yank yank_ on the strands because why can’t you paint? and you know why, too, that’s the thing, you know why, and yet you refuse to face the fact that sometimes the world is just too dark and you don’t really have that shade of cold, endless, desolate black that you always spot in the cracks between a crooked smile or in the withered spines of your roommate’s library books or in the thickness of a blood-soaked iris, do you? besides, you have no idea how to paint the voices in your head or the depravity in the streets either way so your brushes keep quiet and your paints stay sealed in their cans and your pallet remains untouched and your canvas blank and your mind soaked in absinthe because it all knows nothing of you, in the end. 

but sometimes when you’re alone or it’s too early in the morning to awaken the others you will take out your paintbrush and two randomly chosen colors and begin slathering intricate patterns all across your forearms; this is the only time you will paint. no one understands why you do this and frankly you don’t either but for some reason it makes you laugh to have your terrible artistry plastered all across you, serving as a reminder that just as they say, you are nothing and you never will be anything unless you finally push that alcohol so far until yourself that you drown. that’s the only time you can be something—when there’s brandy on your breath—and that something will forever and always be a hopeless drunk. 

why do you drink, though? true, you find it hard to lay down sometimes at night if there is not someone in your bed or drink running through your veins so you drown yourself in strangers and whiskey thinking that loneliness has a cure, though you know somewhere in the corners of your mind that this is not so (if there were such a cure joly would know of it and would be resolving to fix you immediately, but it’s funny in that way because you know you cannot be fixed and that you came as broken pieces, a toy already mangled upon production so what’s the point of thinking about it) but is that really why? is it why is it why? nobody knows and you don’t know and perhaps depression is hereditary, then. 

you scream internally every time they rip the bottle from your hands and tell you that you’ve had too much, though they do not hear the way your voice claws desperately at the back of your lips and threatens to shatter. the thing they don’t understand is that you can never have enough, never enough, because you’ve tried, you really have, have tried your hardest to down as much as humanly possible, and yet you have still not reached that point where those things you don’t tell anyone about can be erased. they don’t get that you have to push yourself so far with this burning liquid because you have yet to use it to its full potential. you don’t tell them how much you truly hate the taste of it either, because that is another story left to be untold and they wouldn’t believe it if you said so anyways, just claim it to be the manic words of a drunken man and wave you off to someplace else like they always always do. drunk, that’s what you are—

—drunk drunk drunk drunk. it sounds odd when you say it too many times, odd like the brush you stroke across your fresh, screaming scars because sometimes the paint isn’t always just a reminder but a concealer, too. if you say drunk too many times it will fall off your tongue and you’ll get dizzy as if you’ve become the word, and maybe you have or maybe that’s just the vodka you slipped into your coffee this morning to forget about the way that gorgeous man in your activist group (which you don’t believe in anyways but are there simply for something to do and someone to follow) smiles when he has passion thrumming through him, or warmly embraces his friends or has a resilient flame in his eyes kindled by martyrs. maybe that’s why you’re laughing to yourself at 2AM, marking your arms with green paint and shivering as the acrylics sting and seep themselves into your wounds. 

they—your friends, your companions, your hopeful little activists in a world so hopeless—don’t see this mania in your head more often than not, and mostly you are glad for this, but it is times like these when you wish they would notice the way your hands are shaking and white at the knuckles as they clutch onto your schoolbag full of spirits, wish they could see though they can’t see or don’t see or won’t see the way your eyes dart back and forth to scan the commons as if they contain an unmentionable monster. you’re seeing it again, the darkness, the disbelief, the demons lurking in every corner and every crevice the earth possesses which everyone else overlooks but you always, always see. and it’s not just that but you’re remembering things you don’t want to, don’t want to don’t want to, but it’s there it’s there it’s there swirling about your mind like a twisted hurricane and it won’t stop won’t stop won’t stop and why don’t you just stop remembering—

—a man from last night layered in salt and sweat and whiskey pulling you into the nearest bathroom stall and pushing himself into you. stop remembering being passive and detached and not there, remembering the way your eyes felt glazed over and everything hazed and all you could imagine was golden curls and softer touches and brighter smiles and earnest conviction as this man spilled into you. why can’t you stop remembering—

—him leaving without so much as a word from the both of you, and stop remembering screaming on the inside but your body not reacting, just sliding listlessly down the stall wall so that you were trembling on the cold bathroom floor and drawing your knees up to your chest and singing the song you had heard on the radio on your way up to this bar over and over, until your voice grew hoarse and your eyes numb and—

_stop remembering stop stop stop stop stop._

but you can’t stop you can’t you can’t, because it’s there, and you remember this all now even though you had not remembered it when you’d first awoken this morning. now it’s surging back to you and the darkness is crawling into you, it is, and you’re scared for the first time in a long time, you are, and all you want is a marble statue caressing the back of your neck or threading his hands into your tangled curls and telling you that he could find and punch that disgusting bastard in the face for you and shun away the darkness with the flames burning at the backs of his fingertips if you wanted him to (which you really really really wanted him to). that’s all you want but you can’t have it because all you’ve ever received from that man is a scornful eye and chastisement and small remarks on how drunk you always are, how your cynicism is not needed at all or then or ever. 

vodka, brandy, beer, wine, that’s what you _really_ need, you need you need you need, that’s what your hands are shaking for but you can’t can’t can’t, because you’re in the public in the middle of the commons at your university with your friends scattered all about you, and if you suddenly yanked a bottle of bourbon out of your bag it wouldn’t end well. not that you’d care much regularly but last time it happened your apollo was so angry with you he would not even spare a glance towards you for days on end, and it made your heart ache so deeply that you vowed to yourself never to do such things. now, though, you wish you hadn’t placed such restrictions on yourself but you’re aware of the consequences and you can’t let that happen again, not again, because the thing that hurts most of all and burns you and scars you and chars you is disappointment. 

jehan seems to notice you at that moment— _finally, somebody_ —and tentatively creeps up behind you, places a hand on your shoulder, is saying your name over and over and over but it’s harder to hear him because you’re on the ground and when did you get on the ground and how did you get on the ground? but you can’t think—no, not at all—and those questions don’t seem to matter as you’re shaken frantically back and forth by a careful hand and worried eyes. soon enough over runs joly as well, who kneels down beside you and stutters out some words of panic and attack and delusions but you don’t get it, are still confused when courfeyrac appears next and takes you into his arms, begins carrying you off into some dormitory close by (presumably combeferre’s, because it’s the closest) but these are the only snippets of the conversation you can catch and everything else is heavy breathing and bloodcurdling screams and is that coming from you? you don’t know, you don’t know you don’t know and where is he? where is here _where is he?_

you don’t know what’s happened but suddenly you are being shoved down onto a bed and you’re screeching, a strangulated chain of _no no no no no no no no no no_ ripping through your vocal chords like cruel, unforgiving shards of fragmented steel. you know how this ends and this can’t happen again because it was terrible and useless and violating and it hurt so so much but they keep panicking and shoving you down, unaware of why you’re so afraid or what you’re yelling about. 

and yet, and yet, things change, clarity and relief seep into you because then, because then—

—because then _he_ rushes into the room, golden and frantic and messy and worried and beautiful. your apollo, he’s here here here, and you freeze, and your screaming stops, and your lips spread into a crooked smile and your heart tears its way out of your chest and leaves the edges of your skin fraying and bloodied but you don’t care about any of that because _he’s here_. the rest of the boys all turn to stare at this man that’s left you gaping with eyes full of desperate wonderment and adoration; they notice the abrupt change in atmosphere and you see the way his brow creases not only with confusion but intensely uncharacteristic worry for you so your pulse drums a little louder in your ears. 

courfeyrac and apollo share a few muted murmurs, some hushed words that you can’t make out, and they are glancing at you constantly, miffed and confused and unsure of what to do with you. courf says something that sparks an unknown emotion in apollo’s eyes and the godlike creature falls silent. then, looking hesitant but sure of himself all at once, he goes to sit beside you nervously, mutters something quiet. but you can’t distinguish it so you just shake your head over and over and over (that’s all you know how to do at this point). joly once again hurriedly kneels at your bedside and touches your clothed wrists lightly (it stings) and examines you and convinces you to strip off your shirt so he can check for anything unusual. this happens all while your apollo rubs light, timid circles into your back and whispers and whispers and whispers and whispers words of reassurance and comfort that astonish you, and you wonder what you’ve done to deserve those placid touches and beautiful hands weaving their way into your body and your heart and your soul, wonder who paid this man or what courfeyrac must’ve said to have him do such things (it doesn’t make sense, gods are not meant to touch or look at or breath the same air as obscenities who have clawed their way to the surface) but no matter; you have this and he’s here and demons are shying away from you and creeping back into their hidings spots between book spines and irises again. 

your chest is still rising and falling rapidly and you still don’t like being on this bed or in bathrooms and definitely not in stalls or closets but joly won’t let you stand because now that your shirt’s been discarded he’s curiously studying the paint smattered across your forearms, the galaxies and nebulas scattered and dancing along your skin. he sends you a confused question and you just laugh and laugh and laugh and all your friends are looking at you strangely but you just keep laughing and laughing laughing laughing because they don’t’ know what’s beneath the paint or what’s within the paint or what the paint means. 

combeferre then makes to his kitchen to retrieve a washcloth on apollo’s word, returning just as quickly as he’s left, and you’re fine and a bit confused but as soon as ‘ferre hands the cloth to the beauty beside you and it inches slowly towards your wrists you immediately flinch away and scream for a glass of whiskey. they say no and you scream again, and again, and again, until suddenly the golden man is whispering and singing something pretty and the entire room falls quiet. it’s a song you’ve heard before, the one that makes your eyelids heavy and your limbs languid with sleep and how does he know you love this song so much? you look into his hypnotic blue eyes and pragmatic smile, as his beautiful voice twists into the fissures of your broken body, and you decide that you can’t help but to give him your arms, just like you’ve given him everything else, everything everything everything. just like you’ve given him the way you wake up in the morning and the way you go home safely most nights despite the alcohol in your bones, given him your empty canvases and unopened paints, given him your eyes and your heart and your education and your body and your thoughts, all without him knowing how to receive. 

you’ve given him everything, even your arms. 

apollo scrubs tenderly, careful not to startle or spook you because apparently you’re sensitive and apparently you’re but a child and you make a snide remark on this. at that there’s something like relief in everyone’s eyes, especially jehan’s, but apollo just keeps scrubbing and eventually it doesn’t hurt so bad. 

soon enough space has been extracted from your arms and sent back into the skies and angry red marks replace their depthlessness. several pairs of eyes fall on them and there are multiple reactions. joly winces noticeably with a hiss, jehan gasps and wipes at his eyes and eventually he has to leave the room because he can’t can’t can’t, just like you can’t. courf swears under his breath, his syllables wobbly at their edges, and combeferre’s eyes go wide but apollo, apollo does nothing nothing nothing as if he knows how much you love nothing. apollo smiles at you gently, all of his previous hesitance now seeped from his system as he says, _"there that’s better"_ as if the marks aren’t there at all, as if he can’t see them and you laugh breathlessly because why is he him and why are you you and why why why? 

it’s at that moment that combeferre catches a look in joly’s eyes, a silent communication, and receives the message, takes the initiative to shuffle himself and courfeyrac out of the room to go and find jehan and get him to calm down and maybe call the others to fill them in on the situation, too. joly and your apollo remain, however, joly because he’s growing more and more concerned by your medical state as each second passes and apollo because both you and he know that if he were to leave you would no longer feel like breathing, instead preferring to swallow yourself with broken glass and shaky hands and flowing red red redness and _booze_. 

your watery smile falters a little and a sort of strangled sob wretches its way out of you, because you realize that that is all you are now and that is all your life has become composed of. booze and blood and delusions and apollo. that’s what you are. grantaire is merely a label, a new name branded onto you for insanity. it is nothing, you are nothing. you are simply madness. you wonder if someone was once named bipolar and the illness was just adapted, too. maybe somebody was called mania once. 

it will be in the DSM someday. _grantaire- the epitome of mental impairment. a speck. a nothing. worthlessly deadly._

joly seems to notice your internal distress then, because his hands squeeze your shoulders lightly, and he looks you in the eyes, soft. he is bad at concealing his panic, terrible at trying to ease the flames of imminence out of his eyes. you should probably be annoyed by his bare telling of fate but instead it just brings you joy to see that joly doesn’t have to conceal himself beneath layers of self-deprecation like you do. 

it’s then that he asks it, brushes a careful thumb over the finger-shaped bruises littering your sides and the skin dangerously close to your hipbones. a timid yet insistent, _"who did this to you"_ that echoes throughout you like the alcohol after a hangover—lingering, always lingering but not really there, not really. 

apollo appears baffled at first by joly’s questioning, looks down to the scars on your wrists, is obviously thinking of the clear explanation: that you did this to yourself, applied the razors to your skin—it should be apparent. but then he catches joly’s gaze and the crystals embedded into his sockets rove downwards and land on the brutal stains of human indecency plastered all across your torso. his breath sticks in his throat, in his chest, and something bright rises up in his eyes then, something murderously bright. 

it pleases you, to see his fury now. beneath the shade of fury, apollo is terrible and undaunted and unwound and tightly coiled all at once. beneath fury, as he is beneath kindness and ease and passion, he is beautiful. always beautiful. 

you realize then that you have yet to answer joly, and also that you don’t’ know how, because he had asked who and you never knew who. all you knew that night was a shock of fiery red hair that you must’ve mistaken for gold, and a devilish smile and startling blue eyes that reminded you too much of somebody else and then you had let yourself be dragged and defiled and disposed. you had let it happen. sure, you didn’t consent, but neither did you protest. 

you let it happen. 

the question is asked again, urgency laced behind it and within it and above it and below it, desperation tingeing its edges. it is not joly who says it this time, but apollo, his eyes ablaze. he says it and he looks at you with so much anger in him, as if it’s your fault that you’ve been violated, which, it is. you open your mouth to answer, to mumble a thin _i don’t know_ but your vocal chords betray you like the inconsiderate bastards they’ve always been, pulling and digging into the crevices of your bones and letting truth slip past them like smooth velvet, slicking and sliding down to pool at your toes where you always fix your eyes on to mask your shame. conjured from the guilt in the soul and the hatred for your own fragility (you’ve always been so strong until now, always so strong, or at least, _strong enough_ ) comes a whispered _"i’m sorry"_ , quiet but clear as day all the same. it’s not what anyone wants to hear and it doesn’t reveal any answers whatsoever but you can’t help what you say, because your voice just knows too much about you. 

joly shakes his head, vigorous, panicked, concerned. _"this isn’t your fault,"_ he stammers, his speech coming in quick gasps and frantic flurries of words that are meant to mend, to stich your heart back into your chest so that you do not feel so hollow, even though cynicism and depression dissipate their healing properties every single time, before they can ever even reach you. you shake your head too, matted black curls like tendrils of sad, dripping ink swirling about your head, bobbing and swaying with the movement, painting autobiographies onto your forehead and the back of your neck. 

_"it is,"_ you respond, hear yourself say it even though you cannot feel your own lips. _"it is because i didn’t say anything."_

_"what do you mean, for christ’s sake, ‘taire?"_ apollo bursts through, his free hand (the one that’s not rubbing slow circles into your trembling back) tensing at his side, knuckles leeched of color, jaw muscles tight and coiled, eyes practically screaming with sparks of refined blue that are marking into you, culminating honesty from within your veins. he is so angry, so angry at you because it’s your fault and you’re disgusting and you’re nothing and you’re fucking crazy and the worst part is that his anger doesn’t hurt you as much as it should, because you accept it, because you know you deserve it so you _take it_. you’re passive. detached. deja vu rings in your ears like a chorus of motley gunfire. you are so worthless. 

but his anger twists into you all the same, his voice alone plunging its way into your throat and yanking forward those words you tried to keep chained to the bottom of your stomach to no avail. he stares (and so does joly, but apollo’s gaze is practically ten times more pressing) and it all spills out of you just as tears do, clutches at you and drags you down into an abyss, into so much nothing, where your nothing and its nothing blurs into one big cesspool of _empty empty empty_ and you feel so scooped out, so full of air, so ready to collapse, so ready to swaddle your wrists with blood and feel something other than nothing. you’re so gone, so lost, and you’re recounting everything to apollo, just apollo, taking his hand in yours for something to make you steady; you are trembling so violently you can’t even see anymore—or is that just the acid stinging the corners of your eyes? it doesn’t matter, though, because whatever it is, it’s making the colors of the world distort and melt and everything looks so _wrong_. it’s all leaving you, the world, and the truth, and your will, and the only thing that’s really there is your angel, your god, your apollo and his soft thumb caressing your shaking hand.

god, even when he’s blurring into nothing he is so fucking _beautiful_. so kind. so passionate. it's all his heart, his heart which is so susceptible to breaking glass, drawn to that which is shattered, because he knows he’s got some remedy embedded into his magnificent voice and twinkling eyes. but he always absorbs the shards when he heals, when he fights for what he believes in or for people or for anything. that is why he will die saving something, or someone, or, gods forbid, _you_. he will die trying to piece you together because he’s suddenly been drawn to desperation, because you are rusty and screaming and sharp. you are so dead. that means if he continues to be gentle and pitying and beautiful and compassionate for anyone or anything or any country despite his anger, or for _you_ he will soon follow in your wake. 

that’s why you pull away then, after you’ve said everything that happened to you that night (you even told him how someone had finally found you lurking in that stall and convinced you to drag your separated sanity home, how you had gone to your flat and just _collapsed_ , shaky and unraveled onto the hardwood floors, desperately wanting to call courf or bahorel or eponine or _someone_ to stop you from relapsing, stop you from crawling into your bathroom to find your razors, to fish them out from under the sink. but no one would answer, you knew, and you were so much a burden already so you just did it, you just did and that was all. you did, and you wrapped your arms in bandages afterwards, later waking up around 5AM so that you could rip the white concealers away and mesmerize the scars with color, no matter how much it hurt and stung) after you’ve choked everything out between ugly sobs and shuddering breaths. to taint something so holy, so delicate and strong and majestic and godlike with your filthy, red hands would be a crime you would never forgive yourself for committing. so you pull away, scurry back from the beautiful creature and press your body against the headboard, ignore the way apollo looks so confused and almost as if he’s been betrayed or hurt, and no, even when you walk away and try to preserve him you bring scowls upon his lips, don’t you? god, it’s always you, always your fault and—

joly is speechless. you’d almost forgotten he was there, but now that you remember you turn to look at him with your wild blue eyes and he is speechless and fucking _afraid_. does he fear you, because you let people take you and use you without so much as a word? does he fear you, because you have the ability to make gods twist themselves into nothing until they die? does he see why you wish to be gone now? 

you don’t know what joly sees or what apollo sees in you after you’ve told them everything, don’t know whether they can see past your name and see your insanity instead, or see past your body and your fabricated appearance to see that you are really just nothing, just blackness, just empty, just dead. do they see that? you can’t tell. but they see something, that much is clear, because they’re staring and staring and staring and crying and crying and crying and no, they can’t cry, they are both so beautiful, why are you making them cry? disgusting, sick bastard you are, you make martyrs cry—

they don’t say anything, they look as if they can’t, as if their words are caught in their throats, wrangled in by their own inability to process your rambling words and your wild inflections and cracking voice. so you say something instead, direct your gaze to apollo, look him in his eyes—his eyes which are soft and blue and stunned and so full of emotion that you can’t decipher; they are just soft, so soft, not sharp as they usually are but beautifully dulled and soft with the smallest glint of tears—and speak solely to him. you do not say your next words maliciously, just curiously, genuine wonderment, amazement, your voice small, so small when it’s generally so loud and boisterous and interrupting. your voice now worn down by demons whispers, low and wondering and sad, _"why are you even doing this? why are you here?"_ and of course, maybe you should know the answer. _because he is good and beautiful and hates injustice so much that he will sacrifice his sanity to be near you if only to try and remedy it. because he pities you. because he loves to lose himself in rescue missions and causes that are never entirely his to begin with. because he is apollo, because he is enjolras_. yet even though you’re aware, you still want to hear it confirmed, want to know so that you’re not grasping blindly for your own answers. perhaps knowing his motive, you can convince him to go, to walk away from you and save himself from eternal, abysmal loneliness. _"you’ve never cared."_

he looks nearly offended at this, though his eyes remain soft, so soft—you are the one which muted that electric blue; you are so sick—as they look upon you, almost in disbelief. _"you mistake chastisement for hatred,"_ he mutters, shifting slightly forward, nervous, pulling his hands back again when you flinch away because you are so afraid that his marble visage will crumble as soon as he even dares to lay a finger on you. _"i’ve never hated you. you are one of us."_ his voice is steady and careful, as if he is measuring his words, thinking too hard but not enough all the same. yet even despite this there is an easy honesty about them, practiced yet passionate, as he is in his speeches he spends hours preparing for rallies or in his debates that he participates in sometimes during the summer. _"i care about you....i do. we all do."_ he lets out a breath, a slow rush of air, like he’s said something he’s been waiting to say for a long time now, or something that he’s felt has been hanging above him for much too long. 

at the mention of _we_ joly nods in agreement, his cheeks tear-stained and wet and his fingers twisted into the duvet, and you want to choke because apollo is so, so fucking beautiful, and because joly agrees with him even despite all that you’ve done, _all of the terrible shit you have put onto them._ they look at you lovingly and your heart aches. you do not deserve that, you don’t know how to take it. 

_"you shouldn’t care,"_ you blurt out then, battling once again to push backwards as the other two push forwards, your words coming out in a flurry of irrational panic. _"you can’t care because you can’t—it’s not worth caring about nothing."_ apollo shakes his head in protest, his eyes going hard and angry again and joly tries to stutter in a word but no, you won’t let them, you continue— _"you see, i’m not really here because i’m just nothing. it’s no use caring about things that aren’t there. all i do is absorb time and space. that’s all."_

your arms are shaking and your scars sting now more than ever before and your bruises are tender too, yelling their protests each time you move, and your muscles are sore from some unnamed man’s hard, sharp thrusts—the jabbing of a knife or the hot press of bullets snaking into your torso and calves and your ass and _it hurts_ and suddenly all of this pain makes itself known and another sob slips past your dry, chapped lips no matter how hard you attempt to contain it within your throat. your eyes bubble and burn and scorch with more of that disgusting acid and your chest heaves and you can’t do this. you can’t—they need to leave the room. you need your razors, fuck how much it hurts right now, you still need them. mark somewhere else to ease the pain of the scars. it doesn't make any sense but it will distract you. they have to leave. 

you scramble across the bed, try to make your way to the door, but you can’t even make it to the floor before there are a pair of strong arms locking around you and rendering you motionless. you cry out because _no_ you have to leave and these arms aren’t letting you and you’re still so sore, so unbearably aching. the grip loosens a little at your cry and you mentally thank some higher power for this as the arms now become gentle and there are whispers being murmured against your ears and desperate kisses in your hair and _what the hell is he doing._

you jolt at the first press of lips to your hair, not that it’s unpleasant, no, it’s so god damn _beautiful_ and _amazing_ and _the solution to your everything_ that it plugs your heart closed and makes your pulse _thump thump thump thump thump_ as if it’s drumming along to the beat of the song stuck in your head ( _they crawl from the oceans to paint in the caves_ ) but you’re not expecting it especially coming from apollo, from a _god walking earth_ , and you’re so afraid that his lips will disintegrate, that his arms will shatter because he’s touched you, because he’s sullied himself with your existence. but no, when you look up at him, so shocked and fearful and quivering, he just smiles, his lips intact and still magnificently pink and gentle, his arms still around you, not fallen to ashes at your feet. you are so amazed by this, by the sad happiness in his eyes that you don’t know how to speak. _"you are something to me, grantaire."_ the statement is so cheesy that it brings a wet laugh out of your mouth but neither of the two pay the sad noise any attention. _"to all of us. i have put off an attitude that i don’t care about you, that i hate you, and i apologize greatly for that. i never meant to make you feel that way."_ his brow furrows at this in slight frustration, as if he’s frustrated at _himself_ and you genuinely wonder how such a thing could be possible as he continues to speak. _"you’re infuriating, grantaire, you really are, and my patience is thin but you are so beautifully sharp and infuriating."_

those are the most words that you have ever heard apollo speak of you, and it makes your chest so tight, your breath so cutting when you suck it into your lungs and out again. air feels scarce. you still hurt but there are lips against your hair again and this time you do not push them away, although what you say next still sounds dead, still sounds lifeless. _"i don’t need pity,"_ you murmur. and it's true, pity is the last thing you want from anyone. of course, you are so invigorated by apollo’s gestures and his soft touches and his words but you can’t believe them, you can’t, because you know you will awaken soon and he will glare at you again, reprimand you again, insult you again. he will hate you again. he hates you. this is _pity_. this is him latching onto a cause. you are not anything to him—you can’t be. that’s too impossible. 

joly interrupts then, placing a lithe hand on your knee, threading into the bruise there and, miraculously, the pain wanes somewhat. _"pity is naturally here right now, grantaire, but that is only marginally what we feel for you."_ he begins, worried and frantic and scared. you can feel apollo’s nod of agreement on your shoulder, and there is another kiss, this time placed by your left ear. _"we aren’t your friends because we pity you. we’re your friends because you’re brilliant and hilarious and grantaire. we love you because you’re grantaire, not nothing."_

your body is rigid. at all of the combined words and those last few, especially, you have become frozen. love. christ, _love_. that can’t be, that—

— _love._ you bite your lip until it bleeds, to hold back the next bout of tears because _love_. to be loved, to feel something you have been putting out for years and years and years and practically all of your life but have never once received, that is so rare and grand and airy and lifting and unbelievable you don’t—you don’t know what to say. you don’t know what to say, but you’re saying something anyways even though you don’t know because this is all you’ve wanted, this is _all you’ve always wanted_ , this is all this is all, and it’s in your grasp and in your fingers and your hands and it’s not slipping, it’s actually not slipping, it’s anchored. _"thank you thank you thank you,"_ you splutter, not in control of your own voice, or the hands that creep up to apollo’s arms around you and grip tightly onto them like a vice. _"thank you thank you thank you,"_ you want to say more, could say more, could speak volumes of gratitude for lifetimes, and they don’t seem to understand this because love to them is so simple, they’ve felt it before, they know it, they do not think it so unbelievable but you do because _so many years_. even as a child you craved so much, but you never got it so then came the alcohol, then the self-inflicted harm but now, now they say it as if it’s so easy and your blood and your heart and all of things you were born with _shudder_ at the mere word. you can’t begin to comprehend why you have this now, why they’re giving you this, bestowing this upon you but they just gave it to you and oh my god. _oh my god_. you are electric. 

it takes you a long while, but finally your limbs relax a bit and apollo untwines one of his arms from your grip to clasp joly lightly on the shoulder. he thanks the man and tells him he should go and check on the others. wounds can be tended to in a few moments.

joly nods, reluctant as he is, but quickly he scurries from the room, leaving you and apollo all by yourselves, hanging in an atmosphere too heavy and suffocating but worth every deep breath and scattered thought possible to exist. you are still so confused, where this sudden love came from, especially from him, and you’re hoping he’ll explain what you’ve done or something because honestly, this is— _this is so implausible._

_"you know how i feel about you,"_ you mumble quietly as soon as joly is gone, so quiet that apollo strains to hear, but he catches it nevertheless, and at these words he brings his free hand up to gently stroke your tangled curls. _"that i’ve felt that for a long time. so please—just, all i’m asking is that you don’t throw the word love at me like it’s nothing. seriously, enj, you know that i can’t—"_

_"is it so unfathomable for me to care about you?"_ he cuts you off, and he sounds almost angered by your stubborn inability to accept what he offers. you get this, and want to accept it, you do. you’ve already accepted that joly and the rest care about you if even fractionally—they are easier towards you, they are your friends— but...but _apollo?_ yes, he has shared a few laughs with you and sometimes you will catch compassion in his eyes when he looks at you, the kind he gets when he looks at combeferre or courfeyrac or jehan or any of the others, but those times are so few and far between that you can count them all on one hand. he’s never been great at expressing affection anyways but _still_ , you’ve always been the outcast of their group, the one that dances on the borders and pesters the members and flits in and out of reality and _annoys and irritates him_. you don’t get it, you don’t get it you don’t get it, not at all. 

when you don’t respond, apollo huffs in annoyance, retracts his grip from you and gently turns you around to face him. he stumbles for words and phrases and syllables that will make sense of emotion but no one can quite make sense of emotion, really, much less apollo despite his daunting grace. his hands fall to take yours and he mutters to them instead of to you, his embarrassment crawling past his cheeks to swathe his neck in a brilliant shade of red. you chuckle lightly at this, despite yourself. _"i have been so terrible to you,"_ he coughs, uneasy about admitting it but knowing it truth all the same. _"i'm....i'm sorry. but, grantaire, though you manage to get on my nerves that's not why i....i mean.....you have always….sparked my interest, i suppose."_ apollo clears his throat, is so formal in his words even when he is spilling out long-held feelings that mean so much to you, it causes your lips to quirk up into a lopsided smile. _"you challenge me in ways that no others can. you are much more brilliant than you give yourself credit for. and quite an agreeable person when you choose not to dull yourself with... less than favorable methods."_ at this he strokes your hands tenderly once more with his thumb. finally his eyes fall upon you, and he looks so hesitant and nervous and uneasy and messy and beautiful, so so beautiful, your heart stutters its way up to your throat. _"i have had….more than just platonic feelings for you for a while now. but i have not acted on them in fear of muddling my priorities. now, though, now that i see how easily you can be lost to me…."_ he swallows down a lump in his throat, tries not to look down at your scars but you see the way his eyes flicker and dart frantically to them for a split second no matter how hard he attempts not to. _"i realize now that i should’ve spoken up sooner. and that i just….i just want to see genuine happiness in you, grantaire, just for once."_

his words, they strike a chord in you. they hit you deep, cut into your heart in the most pleasant way possible but you still...you can't give into him. no, you can't, because...because- _"i am really just nothing, apollo. all i ever see is nothing. you don't want that, you really don't."_

that's when the biggest surprise of the night arises, bigger than the love, bigger than the delusions and the bruises and the scars and the nebulas and the _everything_ , so much bigger than everything. apollo's grip on your hands _tightens_ and _tightens_ until it feels like your skin is suffocating and choking. he clutches at you so desperately and he smiles so desperately and your heart is bleeding. _"but that's the thing,"_ he replies, his voice so smooth, so sure, sparking and brilliant and not shattered like yours. _"i...i didn't want to have to....to say this but, jesus, 'taire i know what it's like to look at the world and feel empty because it's so wrong."_ at that your breath leaves, whooshes out of you and you can't remember how to sustain life anymore but apollo keeps talking so it's okay for now. _"sometimes i....i..."_ and that's where it gets difficult, where the god's velvet words falter and tears sting his eyes again and you want to pull away so badly because it is you, you that cracks his syllables and you that makes his eyes so wet, but his strengthening grip won't allow you to. _"there is a war...in my head, grantaire. i look at the world and all i can see is how much i want to change it. and how much i want to die for something that's not there."_ it doesn't sound like apollo has even said this to himself, to anyone, and that's what's startling you and breaking your heart so. he's admitting this to you and he sounds so _pained_ , you want to paint for the first time in 10 years if only it will stop the shattered glass from puncturing his veins. _"i look at the world and i know i'm not supposed to be here. not now. i'm supposed to be somewhere farther back. some other time period. but i'm here. and it's so wrong, 'taire, it's so wrong."_ and you know that feeling, you know that so well, know how it feels to look and see wrongness and darkness in every crevice. you want to clutch apollo to your chest and say you'll always share mania with him, but you don't. _"you're the only thing, you and the others, that's not nothing. you're what's not nothing. and i'm going to change something in this world, at least i want to, because that's all i can do but until then, until i and the others can make something of the world you're the only thing that's not nothing to me."_

he lets out a deep breath, as if he hasn't been breathing that entire time, as if he hasn't been thinking. you let out a breath too, because you haven't either. 

this revelation is so ground-breaking, so life shaking that you want to cry. but you've had enough of crying now, so that's not what you do. instead a smile breaks across your face, and it is so blinding that you think you see apollo squint for a moment, though this must just be your stupid mind and your stupid head that twists everything into something that it's not, that twists paint into darkness and canvases into earth. _"you know what nothing's like?"_ you say, and it sounds so full of hope that it makes you sick to your stomach but you're speaking too fast for yourself to care either way. he knows, he _knows_ and it's so beautiful because not only is he glorious and compassionate and terrible and gorgeous but he _knows_ too, and he's trying to make something out of his knowing and that is so fucking rare in your species of nothings that you're trembling with excitement and _love_ for this man. _"you know what mania's like?"_

he nods, he smiles, because he sees that you get it too and you're getting each other and how, how had you not seen such brightness in this man's thoughts before? how had you not seen his complexity, his mind which was so susceptible to nothing just as yours was? how had you not noticed? yet apollo speaks, breaking your thoughts in the most delicious way possible; you're aching. _"it's like trying to close doors that won't open."_

that's the best description of your life you've ever heard in years. 

you don’t have any words for him, for something as splendid and monumental as what he’s given you (understanding of your madness, not repulsion, not pity, and...and _love_ ) so you discard all thought and instead surge forward to press your lips against his. it is a bit awkward and chaste at first and you are both shaky and clutching at nothing, but eventually he melts into you and you melt into him and you are not nothing, you are something because a god and his martyrs have told you so and that is more truth for you than you can comprehend. 

when you both pull back there are technicalities in way of kissing, of loving, and you understand this. joly desperately needs to tend to your wounds and your bruises and probably diagnose you with several diseases that you do not have, you need to ease back on your addictions (even though the cutting was a relapse and you had been doing so so well, but still, no excuses) and you need so much help, and there is still so much darkness that nobody can understand and so many demons that no one else can see. 

but now sometimes in the mornings when you reach for a bottle of vodka to slip into your orange juice there is a gentle hand prying it away and telling you to wait, at least, until night, and you will drink less that day and feel less sick the next. and other days when time and pasts and deception and visions that you’ve worked so hard at suppressing seep into you and you itch for blades again, for vermillion rubies slipping down your wrists and pooling at the floor beneath your feet in a beautiful caustic dance of all of the nothing you need to expel from your body, there will be arms to hold you instead and the voices in your head will quiet some. there will be someone to drive you to therapy sessions and someone to listen to you complain about the therapists annoyingly high-pitched voice and repetition of _and how does that make you feel_ , and there will be someone to laugh with and someone to watch stupid movies with and someone to hold when the insomniac in him grabs hold of his eyelids and pries them open, someone to comfort when he’s had a stressful day or is up to his knees in studying for finals or pining for a time period he was never in, feeling sometimes sick to his stomach as he glances around and realizes he is modern—and, well, you are that someone that will sit him down and swaddle blankets around him and bring him a cup of your finest boxed hot chocolate and tell him that it’s okay and he has good to do in a modern era, that he has purpose here, that he can live without the 19th century whispering rebellion into his veins, that you know exactly what it’s like to look at the world and realize how wrong it is to you. that you know what mania is like. it is funny in that way, because you never thought you would be manic together, but you are and you're in love with the insanity of it all. 

and you argue a _lot_ , it’s true, and you fight and bicker and sometimes you relapse and there is so much strain in such a relationship and sometimes you feel so disgusting for putting it all onto him—but nevertheless, you outlast, because it is honest and true and it is not pity or a search for a cause or something to cling to holding you together. it is stupid ridiculous love that makes you sound like a disgusting romcom, and though you hate that you have to admit, that is why you two are still intact even after all that has occurred. he has his own causes and you have yourself to piece together, and you are not overly dependent on each other. you two have a balance that works so wonderfully, because you are night—dark and realistic, bringing sensibility to things that are sometimes too bright to see past—and he is day—shining and hopeful, carrying happiness into your bones and making your ideas just that much less cynical as each day passes forward, though your night will always outweigh his swaying speeches, in the end. and when he feels time creep up on him like a deadly poison, you are something to him, and when you are nothing (always) he is something to you. you have clutched and scrabbled and scratched at love for so long, pined for so long, but nothingness helped you find it and nothingness will always pull you back again. 

you’ve started painting again, and no longer on your forearms. real painting, on your canvases, paintings of a beautiful god and his beautiful martyrs that have made nothings into somethings and somethings into nothings. you have gotten back on track with your new art major (apollo convinced you to switch from law, because that was something your parents forced on you and something you never wanted) and you’re enjoying yourself and you don’t feel mania so much, not always not anymore, and neither does he, because when you put mania with mania your negatives double and sanity is produced. it doesn't make sense, but then again, nothing does. 

besides, you don’t paint your arms. 

you have no need for that, scars are fading.


End file.
